Religion and metaphysics

[YR7]

@David Chart

Why might a magus be Christian? Because he can tell that the priest has no magical powers to speak of; InVi shows nothing. He knows that before the Mass, the host is bread. InHe is very clear on the matter. He can sit in the church with a Sun duration InHe spell up, watching that bread.

Good point. However, there are lots of other pieces of evidence, too - like angels straight-out telling people stuff and so on. And there is equally strong evidence for other Divine religions, and that conflicting - and warring - religions are all under the same Dominion.

Atheism is a much, much less attractive position in ME than it is in the real world; it has a lot of evidence to explain away. Deism has problems with exactly the same evidence, as it seems to indicate that there is a tinkering God. Historically, hardly anyone has been atheist; theism is far more common. Thus, in ME I suspect that the majority of magi will be approximately Christian. I mean, they have the evidence on their side.

I mostly agree, but still am not convinced on the Christianity-point. No magus in his right mind will deny the existence and power of God, and you make an excellent case in favor of a personal god, against pantheism or deism.

Non-Christian traditions and viewpoints are present in the Order. As are Christian ones. Which are dominant is clearly left to the individual saga, and for good reason. I prefer the view that most magi are not christian - that they adopt various other viewpoints, while acknowledging God's power. From the Tremere who disdains a god that will throw his holy warriors against each other in the Crusades, to the Criamon who sees God as tangential to the struggle to escape from the prizon of time. This is, of course, a personal preferrence.

@carvakan

a few example problems. there has been debate over whether or not creation could have been an event that occured in time. If it did, then why did god create reality at time t1 ad not time t2? The worry is that any answer would make the act arbitary. Others have argued that god could not intervene in the world and have miracles because that would imply that his initial creation was less than perfect.

Now, I dont think it is fruitful to debate these things here. This is an ArM forum. I only bring them up to show that I dont think your treatment of god and the three faiths answers concerns about gods rationality and perfection. But again, this is a game, so I am not expecting things to be changed.

I think both Timothy and David are very, very aware of such theological issues. And I, for one, am glad they did not delve into them too much. It would have hurt ArM as a game.

I did find the theological discussion of evil in The Infernal appropriate. I'm only sorry that the spirit of ecumanism led to having many satans; that did not feel right. I feel syncratism would have been superior there, but can see why this wasn't adopted.

[David_Chart]

@carvakan

The phenomena in the game that we players call "the divine" and all its manifestations does not logically entail chrisitanity or a personal god. Magi just could be deists that have a different explanation for the phenomena we know with our meta-game knowledge as "the divine".

Now, if people dont buy into that then they have a very different notion of induction and reasoning than what seems to be is the norm: so be it. Regardless, if someone thinks that there is only one best explanation for a given phenomena, or that we can easily decide between competing theories (be they religious, scientific or metaphysical) then there is not much room for debate.

Of course, I am not arguing for relativism or skepticism. What I am arguing for is that for any given phenomena there are always at least a few if not many reasonable hypothesis to explain them. Trying to figure which is right is just not as easy as I think a lot of people here are characterising it as.

Nothing in induction ever logically entails a particular response. If it did, it would be deduction. It's always consistent to have a different set of beliefs. The question is whether it is reasonable.

"Reasonable" depends on a lot of things, including background knowledge. But whereas, in the real world, it's reasonable to have a view of God that explains why there are not very many miracles, that is not a reasonable view in Mythic Europe, where miracles happen all the time. It's still possible in ME; you attribute the miracles to some other force or forces. But it's a lot less sensible.

Again, this is a game and people can proceed as they like. Maybe people like the idea of metaphysical certainty. On my view that diminishes something in the game.

Who's talking about certainty? Certainly not me. I think the balance of evidence in ME is strongly in favour of a belief in a personal God, and, if you live in an area dominated by one of the three religions, strongly in favour of the personal God of that religion. I think it's strong enough to make it unreasonable to be a deist, but that's very far from metaphysical certainty. If I'd wanted to make it metaphysically certain, I wouldn't have deliberately invoked a (Cartesian) demon in the description of the limits of magic.

[ndkid]

Something I thought I'd point out, in case some participants found it relevant to the discussion, is that Mr. Chart has a degree in philosophy himself, and has written at least one book in the area:
davidchart.com/Books/philosophy.html

I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I have a suspicion that he did have some notion of the guiding philosophical principles of the era to weigh against the medieval paradigm already defined in the previous editions when he became line editor and main author of the 5th ed core rules.

@YR7

I prefer the view that most magi are not christian - that they adopt various other viewpoints, while acknowledging God's power. From the Tremere who disdains a god that will throw his holy warriors against each other in the Crusades, to the Criamon who sees God as tangential to the struggle to escape from the prizon of time. This is, of course, a personal preferrence.

I agree with you in terms of these two houses, though we might quibble over how we phrase them (I think there is an interesting conversation to be had, in or out of character, about how the Criamon belief system interacts with any understanding of God standard to that period). But Tremere is centered in Transylvania, on the edge of Christian lands, so it is less surprising that they would be less Christian than the rest of the order. And I'll even spot you the lion's share of Ex Misc. But I don't think nearly as strong an argument can be made against the Christianity (or, at least, major monotheism) of the other houses.

Or, to phrase it differently, I think that Hermetic magi are approximately as zealous and dedicated to their religion as the nobility of the era; but whereas the nobility tends to rely upon faith, the magi have concrete proof of the power of the divine, and at least some evidence that the divine relates to the popular monotheist systems of the day, as David has discussed previously.

[Vormaerin]

Carvakan,

You seem to be consistently mischaracterizing the position being held here. Its also pretty inappropriate to assert that anyone who disagrees with you lacks a fundamental understanding of logic, theology, or philosophy.

No one in ME is certain of the nature of God in a scientific sense. Your initial proposition was that wizards should most likely be deist or pantheist based on a highly disputable selection of the information they have available.

My position is that they have both more and less information than you claim and that, while its possible to support deism and pantheism from it, its MUCH less likely than some form of theism. Contrary to the real world, the evidence is very much in favor of an active deity. Deism as formulated in the real world is predicated on a lack of supernatural activity by the divinity. In Mythic Europe, the Deist doesn't just have to say "where's the beef?". He has to explain why the beef is actually venison and no one else has noticed. Because there is 1200 years (more if you count the Jews) of demonstrable activity directly linked to the practice of monotheism that is beyond the scope of pagan, magical, or other forces. And that's even if you (as I do) have angels just ignore theological questions as nonsensical from their frame of reference.

There are quite a few prominent Catholic theologians.... not just Origen.... who espoused ecumenical views of God's grace. Islam has similar veins of thought in it. You have completely ignored the question of why deism makes more sense than one of these ecumenical theologies if one starts questioning the universal support for all three faiths.

If your question is "Is it possible for a magus to be deist in ME?", then the answer is obviously yes. Its a much more intellectually challenging endeavor than it is in the real world, but its entirely feasible. But the proposition that Deism is the most logical belief system for magi given what they know is not reasonable. There are just too many simpler explanations that better suit the facts.